Martin A. Sinozich

Martin A. Sinozich

Senior Lecturer of Business Administration

Martin Sinozich is a Senior Lecturer in the Entrepreneurial Management Unit at Harvard Business School. He teaches The Entrepreneurial Manager, a required first-year MBA course, in the spring term and Startup Bootcamp, a short intensive program, in the winter term.

Prior to joining the faculty, Martin served as an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at HBS for four years, advising Harvard-based startups on all aspects of the journey. In parallel, Martin was Executive Director of Startup Secrets, a not-for-profit organization focused on entrepreneurial education and community-building backed by the Boston tech and VC communities.

Martin works with founders and startups as a mentor, advisor and investor. He is active with several early-stage funds as an LP, venture partner, mentor, and executive committee member. He has started, operated and sold interests in technology, health and fitness (Planet Fitness franchises), construction, real estate, hotels, frozen food, and manufacturing. Martin has advised buyers and sellers on private-equity transactions in the $100-$300 million range.

Before beginning his entrepreneurial journey, Martin worked in large financial institutions (Fidelity Investment, MBNA America Bank, Prudential Home Mortgage) where he led innovation teams adopting and adapting new technologies into the corporate DNA. Examples include developing and integrating the first Internet capabilities at MBNA America Bank in ‘95/’96 and developing and integrating the first remote workforce capabilities at Fidelity Investments in ‘98/’99.

Martin received is BA from the University of Virginia where he was an Echols Scholar.

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Case | HBS Case Collection | September 2020

The Black New Venture Competition

Karen Mills, Jeffrey J. Bussgang, Martin Sinozich and Gabriella Elanbeck

Black entrepreneurs encounter many unique obstacles when raising capital to start and grow a business. During their second year at Harvard Business School (HBS), MBA students Kimberly Foster and Tyler Simpson decided to do something to make a difference for early-stage Black technology entrepreneurs seeking funding. In just four months, they created the inaugural Black New Venture Competition (BNVC), which attracted 300 applicants and became the largest student-led business plan competition for Black entrepreneurs in the U.S. Over the course of the competition, Foster and Simpson were able to begin to identify some of the biases and frictions in the evaluation and funding of early-stage Black ventures. Was there bias in the selection rubric? What would happen when these Black founders faced traditional white VC investors in their next funding round? Now Foster and Simpson needed to decide what to keep and what to change for future iterations of the BNVC. Were they, and their successors, even thinking big enough for BNVC 2.0?

Keywords: Startup; start-up; Startup financing; Startups; start-ups; African-American Protagonist; african-american entrepreneurs; african-american investors; African-Americans; African-American women; black leadership; Black inventors; Black entrepreneurs; Harvard Business School; Harvard; business and society; early stage funding; Early Stage Finance; technology entrepreneurship; discrimination; Technology ventures; entrepreneurial finance; entrepreneurial financing; Business Plan; Business Startups; Business Ventures; Business Growth and Maturation; Diversity; Gender; Race; Entrepreneurship; Venture Capital; Small Business; Leadership; Technology; Competition; Technology Industry;

Citation:

Mills, Karen, Jeffrey J. Bussgang, Martin Sinozich, and Gabriella Elanbeck. "The Black New Venture Competition." Harvard Business School Case 821-029, September 2020. View Details

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